Compulsory Devotion?
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:25 PM
Remember a while back when I asked you all about behavioral standards for kids during family prayer time?
I got some great answers, so I want to go back to the topic of kids and prayer.
Should we force our kids to pray?
I have no problem with enforcing good behavior during prayer time: sit still, don’t poke your brother, don’t cause a ruckus, etc. What I’m wondering about is whether, and until what age, it’s reasonable to enforce actual devotions on the part of our children.
My husband and I do expect our two-year-old to pray even when she doesn’t want to. She has a standard set of intercessions she says every night. If she doesn’t say them, she doesn’t get to read books before bed. Usually when she balks at praying, all it takes is a quick reminder of that and she begins quickly asking Jesus to watch over Grandma and Grandpa and the whole list.
A two-year-old is not capable of real devotion. Since our daughter hasn’t reached the age of reason, we can’t yet expect her to be virtuous. All we can do is help her build habits that will lead to virtue in the future.
But at some point once she has reached the age of reason, our hope is that our girl will have a true devotion to her Lord. Prayer is a big part of devotion, but if a person doesn’t offer it freely there is no virtue in it.
I shy away from the idea of forcing an older child to list intercessions the way we make our daughter do now. I hope we’ll never need to do that - my goal is that we’ll be able to help our children develop a love of God that makes them want to pray, always. It seems to me, though, that if they don’t want to pray, there will be a point at which making them do it might cause more harm than good.
(Note that I am differentiating between expecting a child to participate respectfully in family prayer time, and expecting him or her to say actual prayers aloud.)
I expect that in the years to come, we’ll make decisions on this topic on a case-by-case basis, carefully discerning based on the personalities and needs of our individual children. But I am curious about the way other parents have handled it when their kids don’t want to pray.
What have you done? Has it worked for you? Do you have any helpful tips I can keep in mind?
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